John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music.
Derek Bailey was an English avant-garde guitarist and an important figure in the free improvisation movement. Bailey abandoned conventional performance techniques found in jazz, exploring atonality, noise, and whatever unusual sounds he could produce with the guitar. Much of his work was released on his own label Incus Records. In addition to solo work, Bailey collaborated frequently with other musicians and recorded with collectives such as Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Company.
Susie Ibarra is a contemporary composer and percussionist who has worked and recorded with jazz, classical, world, and indigenous musicians. One of SPIN's "100 Greatest Drummers of Alternative Music," she is known for her work as a performer in avant-garde, jazz, world, and new music. As a composer, Ibarra incorporates diverse styles and the influences of Philippine Kulintang, jazz, classical, poetry, musical theater, opera, and electronic music. Ibarra remains active as a composer, performer, educator, and documentary filmmaker in the U.S., Philippines, and internationally. She is interested and involved in works that blend folkloric and indigenous tradition with avant-garde. In 2004, Ibarra began field recording indigenous Philippine music, and in 2009 she co-founded Song of the Bird King, an organization focusing on the preservation of Indigenous music and ecology.
Anthony John Medeski is an American jazz keyboard player and composer. Medeski is a veteran of New York's 1990s avant-garde jazz scene and is known popularly as a member of Medeski Martin & Wood. He plays the acoustic piano and an eclectic array of keyboards, including the Hammond B3 organ, melodica, mellotron, clavinet, ARP String Ensemble, Wurlitzer electric piano, Moog Voyager Synthesizer, Wurlitzer 7300 Combo Organ, Vox Continental Baroque organ, and Yamaha CS-1 Synthesizer, among others. When playing acoustic piano, Medeski usually plays the Steinway piano and is listed as a Steinway Artist.
Eyvindur Y. Kang is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist. His primary instrument is viola, but has also performed on violin, tuba, keyboards and others.
Erik Friedlander is an American cellist and composer based in New York City.
Polly Bradfield is an American violinist from the New York City free improvisation scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Her closest musical associates were Eugene Chadbourne and John Zorn. She also played on records by William Parker and Frank Lowe. Her music career ended when she moved to California sometime in the 1980s. Her last appearance on record was on Zorn's The Big Gundown in 1986.
Filmworks 1986–1990 features the first released film scores of John Zorn. The album was originally released on the Japanese labels Wave and Eva in 1990, on the Nonesuch Records label in 1992, and subsequently re-released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik Records, in 1997 after being out of print for several years.
"For Zorn, filmscores have always been a place to experiment, and the FilmWorks Series is in many ways a microcosm of his prodigious output. This original installment of the FilmWorks Series presents three scores ranging from punk-rockabilly ; a jazzy Bernard Herrmann fantasy; to a quirky classical/improv/world music amalgam for Raul Ruiz's bizarre film The Golden Boat. Zorn's infamous one-minute arrangement of Morricone's classic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, is included as a bonus track. This is the place where it all began."
Burton Greene was an American free jazz pianist born in Chicago, Illinois, though most known for his work in New York City. He explored multiple genres, including avant-garde jazz and the Klezmer medium.
Jennifer Choi is a Korean-American violinist based in New York City. Choi graduated from the Juilliard School and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and has performed in a variety of settings including solo violin, chamber music, and creative improvisation and performed with the Oregon Symphony, the Portland Columbia Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, and the String Orchestra of New York City (SONYC) among others.
To Sail, to Sail is a studio album of acoustic guitar solos by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith. It is Frith's first album of acoustic guitar solos and crosses musical borders with 16 tracks of classical, blues, folk and free improvisation. Frith dedicates each track to some of the important figures in his musical life, including Champion Jack Dupree, John Cage, Terry Riley, Daevid Allen, Barre Phillips and Davey Graham. The album was released on Tzadik Records' Key Series in 2008.
In Search of the Miraculous is an album by composer John Zorn released as a part of Tzadik's Archival series in 2010.
Mount Analogue is an album by John Zorn released in January 2012 on the Tzadik label.
Rimbaud is an album by John Zorn. The album was released on Zorn's own label Tzadik Records in August 2012. It was dedicated to French poet Arthur Rimbaud.
@ is a studio album by John Zorn and Thurston Moore. It is the first collaborative album by the duo and was recorded in New York City in February 2013 and released by Tzadik Records in September 2013. The album consists of improvised music by Zorn and Moore that was recorded in the studio in real time with no edits or overdubs.
Dreamachines is an album by John Zorn recorded in New York City in April 2013 and released on the Tzadik label in July 2013. The album is inspired by the works of William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin.
A Vision in Blakelight is an album by John Zorn recorded in New York City in December 2011 and released on the Tzadik label in 2012. The album is inspired by the works of William Blake.
Filmworks XXV: City of Slaughter/Schmatta/Beyond the Infinite is an album of solo piano pieces composed by John Zorn and performed by Zorn, Omri Mor and Rob Burger which was recorded in New York City in 2009 and 2012 and released on the Tzadik label in January 2013. The album was the last in Zorn's Filmworks series.
The Hermetic Organ Vol. 2 is an album by John Zorn, consisting of a live improvisation on the Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ of St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University, which was recorded on September 23, 2013 and released on Tzadik Records in January 2014. The performance was part of the Miller Theatre's Zorn @ 60 series. It follows Zorn's first volume of organ improvisations, The Hermetic Organ (2012).
The Book Beri'ah is a box set by John Zorn, released on August 17, 2018 by Tzadik Records. The box comprises the final ninety-two compositions that complete the final installment of Zorn's twenty-five year Masada project in limited edition box set of eleven compact discs. All About Jazz commended the compositions for having many levels of meaning and sonic listenability.
